this < ---clicky is what I've been putting up with recently. Classic signs of card overheating. My heatsink fan no longer works, and the card is almost hot to the touch. I've tried all kinds of secondary cooling, but I just need a new heatsink for the GPU...and some more cooling (can't have too much)
So took out my Radeon 9700pro (actually it's a Hercules 3d Prophet
and was trying to take the heat-sink off when I accidently snapped one of the cheap plastic pins that holds it to the card. Sheesh. I then pulled the rest of it off. There was definately some dust buildup around the GPU and the discoloration on the bottom of the copper heatsink was definately noticable…I swapped in an old Nvidia 16mb/32mb or something card I had lying in another old computer and it runs fine at 1280×1024 but won’t start up WoW. 🙁

I really like my video card and haven’t ever overclocked it or done anything besides normal usage to it (it’s a 2002..not that old). So instead of dropping $300 big ones on a new card, I decided to put some new life into this old one. I bought two things on newegg.com

Kingwin 3x50mm Super Heat Pipe VGA Cooler – ok, so I know this is a bohemoth, and one guy said it weighed in at around 3lbs…but hey…we’re talking massive cooling here, we need massive metal to disperse it…Anyway, it wasn’t all that expensive at $29 – so I bought it. Had rave reviews too…least negitives of all of them.

Blitzstorm Slot Cooler – another cheap solution to heat problems. It’s a blower and a fan in one. You can adjust the angle of the fan to blow directly on the center of the card (not sure it’s gonna do a ton of good seeing as my card is going to be the size of a lunchbox and have no exposed areas…) but alas – it will be a functional blower in the event the fan doens’t help. $19.

Last but not least, quality thermal paste. Difference does matter. Artic Silver all the way. The new GPU cooler comes with paste, but almost every review said get new paste, so I did. $5.